Anyone who's had to recharge an EV -- or, for that matter, any mobile device with a very big battery -- knows the pain of waiting for hours while a lithium-ion pack tops up. South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology has developed a conduction technique that could cut that charging time down to less than a minute. By dousing the nanoparticle materials of the battery in a graphite solution that's then carbonized, the researchers make a web of conductors that all start charging at once; current batteries have to charge towards the center slowly, like a not-very-edible Tootsie Pop. The immediate goal is to develop a secondary battery for an EV that could provide extra mileage in a matter of seconds.

Yeah yeah yeah, we've been reading of all of these quick charge schemes using nano ceramic graphite voodoo for years. Is their method commercially viable or did they just prove you can cook an egg with a nuclear reactor?

The slow recharge rate has always been an issue with batteries for electric vehicles. Maybe now we can really get so good gains out of regenerative breaking where the problem has always been storing the energy as fast as it is generated.

It would also be nice to be able to drive reasonable distances without having to recharge overnight.